my schools next drama production is going to be a christmas carol
I am thinking we should use dry ice for the spooky bits

1) do you think this is a good idea/have done before
2) tips on usu-age, storage, cheapest hire in cotwolds etc.

There's a hire compant in oxford called star-tech who will do a heater and next door is a supplier of dry ice. Their price of dry-ice is £50.00 for 20kg and a further £10.00 for 10kg lots.

The heater is £18.00 for a 3kw one the ducting if you want it is £5.00 for 5 meters.

Although it may be cheeper to use a heavy fogger.

BOC gasses tend to be quite cheap for dry ice, they will (or at least would) also hire you a vented, insulated storage container.

You need to arange it so you store it for as short a time as possible and store it in a cool, well ventilated place, prefrably in a polystyrene box or something similar. If you intend to transport it in a car keep the window open to stop you from suffocating.

I think thats prety much it, needless to say you will have to do a risk assesment covering very cold solids, very hot liquids and possible asphyxiation...oh yeah, and don't poke it without insulated gloves on!

can we use if for ice for the rap party?

If there's any left at the end of the week, throwing some lumps of it into the urinals in the gents' is always a giggle! It looks pretty similar to those little blocks of chemicals that the cleaners put in, until a hot stream hits it .....

Not that I'm condoning any sort of larking about with hazardous materials, you understand .....

With those prices I think you also get the hire of a contanier.

I heard that if you get a washing up bowl and fill with warm/hot soapy water lob in a block of dry-ice you produce enought foam to fill a toilet cubical/phone box/simila sized rooms

the kid, yes it does, I remember watching it done on HOW (or was it HOW2, anyone else use to watch this?) once... use washing up liquid not soap;)

Another thing NOT to do with it is putting some in an empty plastic bottle, putting the lid on tight and running away. It will explode and there will be much shrapnel!

Note that this is quite dangerous and shouldn't be done by anyone, ever and I have certainly never done it!

On a serious note the safest way of getting rid of any spare is to leave it outside in an isolated area to turn into a gas (what the hell is it called when a solid turns to a gas without being a liquid at any stage, I always forget).

There is no name for the liquid to gas stage for dry ice, it doesn't exist. The difference between solid, liquid and gas is like 1degree c so it is unseen.

The word for a gas passing to a solid is sublimation.

I thought carbon dioxide simply does not ever become a liquid, it has nothing to do with the fact that its a small stage as your post implied. I cant remember the word either, 'supercritical' comes to mind but im not sure... *googles*

[edit] ignore that, I was wrong, (see second post)

'cuse the second post..

sublimation? I think thats the word

it seems CO2 will exist as a liquid at 20°C and a pressure of 30 atmospheres. so if anyone wants to try this:D

CO2 Info

Whilst I was buisy finding info I forgot to ask.
why are you doing a christmas carol in high summer?

we are doing it in november,

another place is lancelyn.I think they are quite cheap and they will deliver it when it is needed!
they are in oxford, in electric avenue! famed by eddy grant. (the song, electric avenue.)

useless fact number 33.

Yeh This is the company that I was on about who will do the dry-ice the other company is is the same place.

Where abouts in the Cotswolds are you based?

Many years ago our school managed to blag all the dry ice we needed, for FREE, from a local ice cream maker Sadly they didn't throw in any free ice cream

That'll be the one.

Firstly, I'd look at some of the modern heavy fog machines which are really quite good and much less hassle.

As for CO2 turning liquid, try shaking a CO2 fire extinguisher and what do you hear? Also some fog chillers (the Rosco Coldflow springs to mind) run off liquid CO2.

there is a fog machine from antari that uses low lying fog juice that looks like dry ice, and isn't as complicated! pretty sure its antari

bourton on the water

yeh, I thought about one of those, who hires them though?
anyone know if cts do any, as we use them mostly?

Errr ... phone them and ask them??? Or is that too obvious?

yeh, I will

Try the Heavy fogger from Coeamar, its pretty damm good and takes normal Ice, not dry ice. Now at my college Coemar were great to us and leant it to use, and our local pub gave us all the ice we needed, so an hour before the show we nipped up there with a bucket and got a bucket of ice. No storage issues!!

Bear in mind that the storage issues under discussion here relate to dry ice (I.e. solid carbon dioxide), as opposed to ordinary ice. It's a whole different ball game.

major storage and operation issues come into play when using a liqiud Co2 bottle for the le maitre systems - I.e. all the pipes involved become VERY cold - not good if the only place to store the bottles is in the wings. LSG (low smoke generators) can be a good solution but they can also make a racket. Best way of making dry ice is using le maitre pea soupers and being carefull with dry ice.

Also try your local large theatre to see if they have any dry ice containers - or when ordering from BOC (order the small slabs) ask that they leave the transportation crate - we got one at uni and it keeps dry ice for around a week if your careful with it.

alternatively, the antari ice is a very good machine. Produces a 'dry - ice' effect using ice and a special smoke fluid.

I fink Stage Electrics do, not sure though, web site not finished yet, or so they keep saying